Many people are now playing poker on the Internet. A number of companies host games by having a website or URL, such as Party Poker and Poker Stars. The host sites generally offer a variety of games, and the number of players in a game will vary. The same type of game may be offered with a different maximum number of players. The lower the maximum number of players, the less the quality of the hand necessary to “call” and the faster the game. Where fifty-five hands an hour might be played in a nine player game, one hundred hands an hour might be played in a six player game.
A popular online poker game in the United States is Hold 'Em, and at times it comprises approximately eighty percent of the online games played. Four other popular games with a smaller percentage of the market include Four Card Omaha High, Four Card Omaha 8OB (high-low eight or better), Seven Card Stud High and Seven Card Stud 8OB. Other U.S. games comprise a smaller percentage of the market. The relative popularity of these and other games typically changes over time. There are also numerous other poker games, including foreign poker games.
There are two types of poker games: (1) the regular games and (2) the tournament games. In a regular game, if a player loses chips he may purchase additional chips and continue to play. A regular game player is free to leave the game at any time. When he quits the game, he exchanges his chips with the cashier for money. If a regular game player takes a temporarily break during the game, he is not required to ante during his break. The antes remain constant for a regular game.
Tournament game players buy an entry in the tournament for a specific amount of money and for which they receive a specific amount of chips. A tournament starts at a specific date and time or it starts when there are sufficient players to constitute the tournament. A tournament differs from a regular game in that the antes are increased periodically based on a specific time interval or the playing of a specific number of hands. Periodically increasing antes causes tournament players to be squeezed out of the tournament where eventually one player winds up with all of the chips. Tournament players are expected to continuously play except for breaks that are specifically set up so all players break at the same time. If a tournament player takes an unauthorized break, chips will be automatically deducted from his stack for antes when it is his turn to ante. The players who survive the longest receive a larger percentage of the tournament monies. The cashier will reward a certain percentage of the tournament players with the escrowed tournament money based on their ability to last the longest in the tournament. A tournament is normally completed when a specified number of players, normally one, end up with all of the chips. A tournament player can only play one entry in a tournament at any given time. He is not allowed to play multiple concurrent entries with one or multiple hands.